Talk Elections

Obama regains large lead

Raleigh, N.C. – After a week in which Barack Obama made several appearances in North Carolina and confronted the controversy with his pastor by making a major speech on race, he has expanded his lead in North Carolina to 21 points.

Obama leads Clinton 55-34 in the state. His gains were particularly strong in the Triangle, the media market where his major speech on the war last week in Fayetteville got the greatest amount of attention.

Obama also pulled within a 47-40 margin of Clinton with white voters after trailing Clinton 56-30 last week, an indication that his speech on race in Philadelphia last week may have earned him some points.

“The rule of thumb in this Presidential race is that if you don’t like how things are going, just wait a week and they’ll turn around,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “Obama has really improved his standing in North Carolina by visiting the state and openly taking on some of the controversies swirling around his campaign.”

In the Governor’s race Richard Moore has pulled within seven points of Bev Perdue after launching his first negative ad. She leads 41-34. The poll also showed that 50% of likely voters say there is a chance they could change their votes between now and the election.

Kay Hagan continues to maintain a double digit lead over Jim Neal in the primary for US Senate, 19-9. 61% of voters remain undecided in that race. For the Lieutenant Governor’s race, Walter Dalton leads at 10% followed by Dan Besse and Pat Smathers at 7%, and Hampton Dellinger at 6%.

PPP surveyed 673 likely Democratic primary voters on March 24th. The survey’s margin of error is +/- 3.8%. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_032508.pdf

This day is getting better and better ... :)

And they said it will be close.

Obama jumps 20 points in a week?

Yepp. And if we take into account the average of the 3 polls that were conducted on March 16 in PA, Obama also jumped 8 points in Pennsylvania since last week ...

Note though that this large swing in North Carolina is within the PPP context. I suspect this says more about PPP than about North Carolina. (which of course means that their last poll should not be taken as a sign of a Clinton comeback either. The more I see of PPP the more sceptical I get)

Well they are a new polling group so they still may have some bugs to work out. But they have done a good job in the past.

I thought PPP polls were always thrown out. I guess not in this case ...


I would be very surprised if he got 40% of the white vote in NC. 30-35% max. I do believe he'll win the state, but not by 20%.

I don't understand why we would, considering they haven't screwed up a race badly yet.  Underestimating Obama in Georgia appears to be their greatest sin thus far.

They seem to be very volatile in their polling. That always makes me a bit suspicious.

I haven't seen any evidence of PPP volatility until today.  Their results are otherwise pretty consistent with trends:

https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2008D/polls.php?type=src&source_id=108

It was the same in Wisconsin, with Obama suddenly jumping 9% in 6 days. Apart from that they've only really polled Georgia (which they blew), New York and Tennessee (where they did good) and South Carolina (where they were also ok, sort of). As I just said in another thread I did have them a bit confused with Insider Advantage, for some reason. So they're not that bad, I guess. But I prefer Rasmussen and SUSA.

PPP has been great so far this year.

Again, great is an exaggeration, imo. They haven't polled enough races to allow us to call them either way. But I retract my earlier statement, that was a mistake on my part.

PPP only polled Wisconsin twice.  They showed Obama up 11 on Feb 12th, and then up 13 on Feb 17th.

The white vote is within 7 points. I really do think the white vote will closer here than in PA.

Ahem...I don't think I will ever discuss PPP ever again. It seems to be cursed for me. This time I thought that NC poll was a WI poll for some reason. Well...never mind me, I'll just toddle along. :P

PPP was right on the money with WI.

This is like that Zogby poll that had Obama going from +6 to +13 in California in 1 day.

I don't see anything that has happened that could explain a shift like this. Though, if this poll is anything close to true, Clinton is finished. She may limp through the end of May and through to Puerto Rico, but then the super delegates will close it out.

Either this poll is wrong or PPP's previous poll of NC is wrong.

Seriously? Why on earth would that happen? Obama will win North Carolina, if he does, largely on the strength of the black vote. There are still some Jessecrats out there and they sure ain't gonna vote for the black man. Obama will probably not get blown away among whites like in the Deep South, but I doubt he does better than in Northern states.

You have many white liberals from the northeast which have moved down to the Raleigh, Charlotte & greensboro areas, you also have Asheville which is quite liberal.  Within 7% seems a bit too close, but I think he will be closer with the white vote in NC than most people think he will.

I'm well aware of that. Hence:
I still doubt there are more Northern liberals in a Southern Republican state than in a Northern Democratic state. :P

PPP blew everyone else out of the water in Wisconsin and haven't been really off in any state so far.

https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2008D/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=5520080218001 :)

They were off by 25% in Georgia. But I already explained that I confused them with IA. Among other things...

So, they might be off by 10 percent. I don't think the crisis has had time to completely settle enough for Obama to have such a lead. If PPP's as good as most of you seem to think it is, I guess that's another site I'll try to look up.

I don't know why everyone is so convinced that this is a horrible poll that can't be accurate.  Obama won 55% in South Carolina and got 63% in Virginia.  Doesn't it make sense that he'd be somewhere in between there in a state thats in between those two?

I have said for the start that NC will vote like VA.

His win there won't be that big.

That reasoning makes no sense to me, honestly. Since Arizona is between New Mexico and California it should be in between them, but it's more conservative than both. Etc.

In South Carolina I think the black electorate was a bigger player than it will be in North Carolina. And Virginia was an open primary in the midst of Obamania. I also believe Virginia has a larger suburban-urban Northern liberal vote than North Carolina has.